


Tomorrow is Yesterday II

by TheReversalOfSam



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Needs a Friend, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Gen, James T. Kirk is a Good Friend, M/M, what happens if the enterprise gets involved in the clone wars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 07:17:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19883752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheReversalOfSam/pseuds/TheReversalOfSam
Summary: A 'freak' wormhole on a routine mission sends the Enterprise to a galaxy far, far away and a long, long time ago...Set during the Clone Wars era for Star Wars and post-S3 for Star Trek TOS.





	1. A Transcendental Bijection of the Spacetime Continuum

**Author's Note:**

> Live long and prosper!
> 
> Welcome to the universe's most indulgent Star Trek/Star Wars crossover fic. The idea here is to throw the crew of the Enterprise at the Star Wars universe and let Anakin Skywalker have some much needed friends. We'll see if Captain Kirk and his crew can provide the outside perspective and extra help the Jedi might just need to turn the tides of the Clone Wars...
> 
> Main pairings are established-but-secret!Padme/Anakin and carefully-ignoring-their-feelings-for-each-other!Kirk/Spock.
> 
> I've never understood the animosity that reportedly exists between Star Trek and Star Wars. I love them both and think they'd go great together, so I decided I'd go ahead and throw them in the mixer.
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I do writing it~ Please do leave a review with your thoughts and feelings if you have the time and inclination!
> 
> May the Force be with you.
> 
> Sam.

# A Transcendental Bijection of the Spacetime Continuum

_Captain’s log. Stardate: Unknown._

_While on a routine mission to study the collapsing of twin stars, the_ Enterprise _was sucked through a wormhole. We have emerged on the other side, unharmed, but unaware of where, or perhaps even when, we are._

Jim supposed he should be used to time travel by now. It wasn’t like this was the first time it had happened. It was, admittedly, the first time it had seen fit to fling them out of the known galaxy, but hey. All in a day’s work for the _Enterprise_.

Jim pressed the button for the comm down to Engineering. Scotty had been swearing up a storm minutes ago as he had been struggling to hold his Silver Lady together. The forces exerted by the energy field that had suddenly come upon their ship were immense. It was a testament to Sulu’s expert piloting and Scotty’s vaguely legal modifications to the ship that they were all alive, intact and relatively unharmed. Poor Ensign Rand had been delivering Jim’s morning report when the energy field struck and had been flung unceremoniously across the bridge. Spock was helping her to her feet, even as his science station smoked from the power surge.

“Mister Scott,” Jim snapped into the comm, hoping to God that the ship’s communications were still working. He could see Uhura trying to flag the Federation out of the corner of his eye. “Report.”

After a crackle of static, Scotty’s voice came through. He sounded stressed, exhausted, but proud. “It was a rough one, Captain, but she’s pulling through just fine. No major systems damaged. A few of the more delicate systems took a pounding, but it’s nothing we can’t have ship-shape in a couple of hours.”

Jim breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good news, Scotty. Thanks. Kirk out.” He released the comm and turned to Uhura. “Lieutenant, have you been able to contact the Federation?”

Uhura’s mouth was pinched with frustration, but her eyes gleamed with her usual determination. “Not yet,” she reported. “There’s total silence on all the standard frequencies. I am getting a lot of chatter across another frequency,” she said warily. “It’s a language I don’t recognise. It’s taking the UT time to decipher.”

Jim hid most of his resulting frown at the news. They had been on the edges of Federation space, charting the slow collapse of a set of twin suns. There were on the opposite side of the known galaxy from all possible hostiles. The Klingons and Romulans shouldn’t be anywhere near them, and all known species in the region were either Pre-Warp or friendly to the Federation. Even if this language was new, the species using it should be friendly. That was assuming they were still in the same region of space as they had started in, of course.

“You keep working on that, Lieutenant,” Jim ordered. Uhura gave him a tight nod and got back to work. She was clearly having the same concerns as Jim. The _Enterprise_ didn’t exactly have a great track record with First Contacts.

“Mister Chekov, Lieutenant Sulu,” Jim addressed his flight crew. The pair barely stilled their flying fingers, obviously working hard to keep the _Enterprise_ from crashing into some random astral body in their new, unknown circumstances. “Any idea where we are?” Jim let a little humour bleed into his voice. If he acted worried, the whole crew’s morale would suffer.

“ _Nyet_ ,” Chekhov replied, voice a little high with strain. “Ewen the chronometer has stopped working.”

“We’re in a one-sun system,” Sulu reported. He swore and the ship’s artificial gravity struggled to compensate for the sudden nosedive the pilot performed. “And in an asteroid field. I think there’s a planet nearby but the sensors must have been damaged. I can’t make out details.”

Jim felt like swearing too, but he kept a straight face. “Can you get a visual, Mister Chekhov?”

Chekov was already running the code to reboot the sensor array. “Working on it, Captain,” he replied.

Jim grinned, proud of his crew. They knew how to work through a crisis. He couldn’t ask them to perform any better.

“Jim!” Bones’ irritated voice came through the comm in the arm of Jim’s chair. Jim pressed the button to answer.

“Bones? What’s wrong?”

“What the blazes are you lot doing up there?” And Bones was ranting. Which meant no-one was seriously injured. Jim felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. Regardless of where or when they were, they at least hadn’t lost anyone.

“Just a spot of time-travel, Bones,” Jim returned flippantly. He could practically see the vein in Bones’ head throbbing.

“Just a-” Bones spluttered. “Now you wait a minute, Jim, you’re not saying-”

“That we have been randomly flung through time again?” Jim finished. He chuckled, a little exasperatedly. “It seems that way. The chronometer’s not working.”

The intensity of Bones’ frown was almost audible. “Maybe the stupid thing’s just broken.”

“Maybe,” Jim allowed. He met Spock’s dark eyes across the bridge, reading the thoughts in those expressive orbs even if Spock appeared completely unaffected in the rest of his being. Jim swallowed against his own emotions and said, “If you’re not busy down there, Bones, we could use you up here.” _I could use you up here_ was what Jim didn’t say. But Bones heard. He always did.

“On my way, Jim,” the doctor replied and disconnected the comm.

Jim stood from his chair and strode confidently over to Spock and Rand. “Are you okay, Janice?” he asked, pitching his voice lower to keep their privacy.

Janice Rand’s perfect blond beehive had not even a strand out of place, even though a solid red bruise was starting to form under her left eye. She smiled at Jim through the pain. “I’m fine, Captain,” she reported. “Sorry about your reports.” Jim followed her gaze over to the PADD that had, minutes earlier, contained his paperwork for the week. It was little more than twisted plastic and metal at this point. It looked like someone with three times the strength of a normal human had stepped on it in their haste to help Rand. Somehow, Jim couldn’t feel much sorrow at its passing.

“Not a worry, ensign,” Jim chirped. “You’ll want to let Doctor McCoy have a look at your head when he gets up here.”

“It’s not that bad,” Rand insisted. “I’ve had worse.” Which was, unfortunately, true. Including at the hands of Jim’s evil doppelganger, one time. Like Jim said, the _Enterprise_ had seen some weird things.

“Still,” Jim clasped a hand over Rand’s shoulder and gave it a supportive squeeze, “Bones will have _my_ head if he doesn’t get to fix yours. So do it to save your captain’s life.”

Rand giggled at that, and Jim smiled at her in return. He then turned his gaze up to Spock, finally. Spock was who Jim wanted to go to first and foremost in any crisis – and even when they weren’t in crisis – but they both knew it was hardly appropriate for the Captain to holds hands with his First Officer every time something happened.

Not that it would be appropriate to hold Spock’s hand anyway, what with his being a Vulcan and all.

Jim gave himself a mental shake to clear his thoughts. “Mister Spock,” he said, voice betraying some of the depth of the warmth he felt for his friend. “Any theories as to what happened to us?”

Spock clasped his hands behind his back, falling back to parade rest, even as his slanted eyebrows drew together ever-so-slightly. “No theories, Captain.”

“Speculations, then?” Jim teased. He knew how much Spock hated giving opinions without sufficient facts to back them up.

Spock pulled a non-expression that meant he knew Jim was teasing him. “I would speculate that the _Enterprise_ had the misfortune of being in the path of the expansion of one end of a transcendental bijection of the spacetime continuum. Before the science terminal ceased functions,” which was a nice way of saying ‘exploded in my face’, “the data indicated that the energy field had travelled a great expanse of time and distance. The directional velocity and wavelength-shift of the bijection leads me to hypothesise its origins are not of our galaxy.” Jim blinked at that.

“That doesn’t sound good, Spock,” Jim commented.

“Good is a subjective term,” Spock philosophised, much as Jim knew he would. The human smiled at his Vulcan companion’s reaction. “The energy field has no sentience and therefore cannot possess the qualities humans ascribe as being either ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”

Jim chuckled heartily at that, letting himself be distracted from the current problem for one sweet moment. “Okay, Spock,” he said. “So what does a bijection of the spacetime continuum which is neither good nor bad want with the _Enterprise_?”

Spock looked like he wanted to space Jim. In other words, his eyes tightened slightly as he tried to parse why Jim was insisting on anthropomorphising special anomalies. “It does not want,” Spock launched into his lecture on humanity’s foolish need to give emotional meaning to random events of nature, and Jim was saved by the timely arrival of his surly CMO.

“What doesn’t want?” Bones interjected, coming up to the trio. He already had a hypospray in hand. A mild painkiller, Jim realised immediately after Bones violently assaulted him with the needle. It eased his tension headache almost instantly. Jim had to hold in a relieved sigh. He hadn’t even realised just how much his head was hurting. He tended to tune out pain during crises.

“Ow, Bones,” Jim said indignantly, rubbing his upper left arm, which was entirely uninjured of course, but he hated needles and loved to rile up his friend. “We’re in a crisis. Could you not assault the captain for five minutes?”

“No,” Bones said and jabbed Jim with another hypospray. Jim yelped but didn’t manage to get out of the way in time.

“A starship’s chief medical officer should conduct himself in a manner suiting his profession,” Spock said pointedly.

Bones caught the barb and spun on the Vulcan. “Why you pointy-eared-”

Spock quirked an imperious eyebrow at the doctor.

Jim decided to intervene before he had two crises to deal with. “Doctor,” he interrupted. “Ensign Rand has a headwound, which she is unsuccessfully trying to hide from you.”

Bones froze mid-rant, laser eyes narrowing in on Rand, who was indeed trying to sit innocently in the science officer’s chair, with her head casually leaning on her hand to cover her darkening bruise. Rand shrank under the sudden attention. “I’m fine,” she tried insisting.

Bones gentled as he spied the bruise barely hidden under her fingers. “Of course, you are, Ensign,” he agreed. He tossed a glare at Jim. “It’s this one who’s not right in the head.”

“Hey,” Jim protested without force. “I resemble that remark.”

That got Rand grinning, and earned him an eye-roll from Bones. As Bones settled in to care for Rand, casually insulting Jim with her until she relaxed enough to admit she was in pain.

Spock, meanwhile, was giving Jim a look that said he was considering Jim’s remark. “I cannot believe I agree with the doctor on this,” Spock said at length, and Jim could tell by the sparkle in his dark eyes that he was joking, “but I am beginning to speculate you are not ‘right in the head’, Captain.”

Jim rolled his eyes, grinning. He clapped Spock on the upper arm, unable to restrain his need for touch, and indulging for just a moment. “Thank you for your vote of confidence, Commander,” he joked back. Then, sobering, he said, “Now, about this energy thing that tried to eat us?”

Spock settled back into his more professional mode, which really didn’t look that different from his friendship mode. “It was possibly a wormhole, to use the common term.” Spock’s pinched nose at using the common term made Jim’s grin return.

“And this wormhole,” Jim said, “blasted us somewhere or somewhen of which we do not know.”

“Precisely, Captain,” Spock said, sounding as pleased as a Vulcan can that Jim was following.

Jim had a Masters in Physics, as well as Astronautical Engineering and Space Flight. He wasn’t as dumb as he led most people to believe, and he knew he constantly surprised Spock by keeping up with him. He was nowhere near as brilliant as his Vulcan Science Officer and he would never pretend to be, but it was nice to be able to hold a conversation with him. Most of the crew were intimated either by Spock’s impassive face or his big words. But not Jim.

“Well,” Jim clapped his hands together decisively, “let’s see if we can’t fix that science station and figure out where we are, Mister Spock.”

Between the two of them, Jim and Spock managed to repair most of the damage to the science station within the next forty minutes. Sulu had admirably steered the _Enterprise_ into a tight orbit around an asteroid the size of a small moon and was using it to help shield the ship from the other asteroids in the field. It wasn’t the worst asteroid field they’d ever flown through, and their shields could take on most of the sizes in this field, but they were flying unprepared through an asteroid field nonetheless, which was always a risky prospect.

Scotty was busy trying to fix the internal sensors that had overloaded in their impromptu trip through the wormhole. The exterior sensors were luckier, judging by the preliminary reports from Engineering. They had survived because the _Enterprise_ ’s power had been redirected to the hull-plating. It was an old trick from some of humanity’s earliest interstellar ships, from before force-field shielding was integrated into human technology. The hull plating itself could be polarised, magnetised and electrified along a million different frequencies, which could repel and prevent all manner of physical and electromagnetic threats. Force-field shielding was superior by far, in that things would rarely actually impact the ship, but it was impossible to maintain the in the high-density-energy environment of the wormhole. Jim had ordered all available power rerouted to the hull plating and had Chekov run it on the frequency Spock suggested would work best. It had likely saved all their lives and the ship from most of the potential damage, but it had left them woefully blind to the outside world, at least until they could fix the machinery designed to read the scanner’s data.

Uhura was busy manually overriding the Universal Translator which kept bumping into errors in translation, likely caused by an abundance of unfamiliar terminologies and/or military codes. Jim sincerely hoped it was the former; the last thing they needed was to accidentally fly into the middle of a warzone.

Chekhov and Sulu were shoulder-deep in discussion over the stars they were charting as they rotated around with the asteroid. All the data they had to go off of was the visuals rerouted from the observation deck. The security camera there was presently being directed at the huge transparisteel viewport. The images it captured were being shown on the navigation screen at Sulu and Chekov’s desks. The viewscreen at the front of the bridge was presently engaged in running ship’s diagnostics for the rest of the bridge crew as everyone hurried to repair what damage they could.

Bones had long since grown too irritated by the fuss on the bridge, and had strong-armed Rand away from her attempts to help Uhura with the Universal Translator to take her down to the med-bay. Rand was fine, like she’d been insisting, apart from the fracture in her cheekbone. Bones could have it fixed in a jiffy, but he insisted on bringing her down for a proper series of brain scans to head off any further complications, just in case.

Jim tried not to worry about his personal ensign. He hated when any of his crew were injured, but it always cut extra deep when he’d spent a lot of time in person with them. And Rand was the person who harassed Jim to eat and eat well even more than Bones did, which was saying something. Jim probably would have dropped dead months ago from malnutrition if not for her efforts.

He really hoped she would be okay.

“The scanners are back online, Captain,” Spock reported from overhead. He was working on the panels and displays while Jim crawled around in the space beneath the console. Wires sparked next to Jim’s head. Spock said, “Scanners are offline, Captain.”

Jim swore and started attempting to strip the wires that had just melded together. He ended up having to bypass them entirely, rerouting all the data away from the microscope which seemed to be at the root of the fault.

Spock didn’t even announce when they were back online. Well, he made it halfway through the announcement, before he abruptly switched tracks.

“Scanners are back on-” A tiny pause from the Vulcan chilled Jim’s blood. “Captain. You need to see this.”

Jim winged his head on a panel in his haste to crawl back out. He rubbed his sore temple, covering a wince, as he turned to Spock. The human was charred and covered in grease, hair a mess and shirt partially torn (again; Jim really had to talk to admin about getting them some better-quality uniforms). The Vulcan was similarly charred and greased, but not a hair was out of place. Jim envied Spock his ability to appear unruffled. He had to remember to ask him how he did it.

For now, Jim looked where Spock was looking, at the science station’s display. According to the data coming from their one surviving external sensor, they were no longer in the Milky Way galaxy. They were in an unknown solar system, only a short distance from a large M-class planet with eight moons. And all of that was interesting and important information, but it seemed dwarfed in comparison to the other revelatory information it displayed.

In space above the planet, likely in battle over said planet, were engaged dozens of starships. There appeared to be at least three large cruisers facing off against four other large frigates, with scores of other ships squaring off around them.

“Spock,” Jim’s voice was breathless. “That’s-” He couldn’t finish his sentence, too horror-struck at the thought.

Spock finished it for him. “War.”


	2. The Battle for Felucia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka disappears, but it's not into the Force.

# The Battle for Felucia

The battle for Felucia was not going well. Anakin Skywalker could admit when the clankers had them on the backfoot. Unlike his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, who was convinced they had the upperhand. He had sent her on patrol in Felucia’s dense jungle and she had the battle droids retreating, which she thought meant she was winning. Anakin knew it just meant they were regrouping.

Obi-Wan and Anakin knew that Felucia was lost as soon as the droids had set up their blockade of the planet. It would be a huge blow for the Republic war effort. Anakin didn’t want to leave any more than Ahsoka – it was these small turning points that would win or lose them the war, after all – but he wanted to die even less.

Still, cutting swathes through forests and droids was one thing, getting his Padawan back on the ship was another.

“Ahsoka!” he called to her, lightsabre slicing through a droid. “We need to go!”

“No, Master!” she yelled back, twin blades spinning. “We’ve got this!”

“Ahsoka,” Anakin growled, aiming to get closer to her so he could carry her back to the ship if he had to. Then, a group of B2 battle droids appeared out of the scrub, gun-arms trained on his Padawan. “Ahsoka!” he screamed.

She turned in time to see the droids and flinch away, preparing for death by blaster fire. Anakin was too far away, even with the Force speeding his steps, he’d never get there in time, but he couldn’t just watch his Padawan die-

Everything happened so fast, Anakin was hard-pressed to describe it even with his enhanced Force-vision.

Ahsoka called his name as she began to fade away into a spinning light. Anakin thought wildly she was ascending into the Force like the Jedi Masters of old but she looked altogether too panicked for that. The droids fired on her, their blasts slicing through the empty air where Ahsoka had stood mere seconds before.

“Snips!” Anakin cried. He made short work of the B2 droids, hardly noticing them fall in his fear and anger. Not grief, not yet; he refused to believe his Padawan was dead. He could still sense her presence through their training bond. “Snips! Where are you?”

No verbal answer was forthcoming, so Anakin forced himself to calm enough to reach down their training bond. _Snips? Are you okay? Where are you?_ They hadn’t perfected the art of spoken word connection, but they were working on it. It was enough that she should sense his emotions reaching out for her.

He felt a pulse of reassurance sent back his way and nearly stumbled with relief. He forced his legs to work as he led his men back to the gunships. Ahsoka also sent him a wave of urgency and fear, which lent greater speed to Anakin’s legs as he ran. He had to remind himself not to leave his men behind. They would be fine without him, sure, but that didn’t mean he would betray them and leave them behind.

They all made it back to the gunships, regrouping with Obi-Wan and the rest of the 501st and 212th. “Obi-Wan!” Anakin rasped, breathless with exertion. “Something happened to Ahsoka! She disappeared!”

Obi-Wan’s graven expression twisted into unpleasant surprise. “What do you mean, Anakin? She can’t just disappear.”

“I’m telling you what I saw, Master,” Anakin insisted, emphatically gesturing with his fist, still clenched around his now-unlit lightsabre. “Snips was standing right in front of me and then she turned into light.”

Anakin could tell Obi-Wan had no more idea what had happened than Anakin. “We’ll find her, Anakin,” Obi-Wan promised, laying a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “But we need to leave now, before we suffer further losses.”

Anakin bit his lip, swallowing an angry rush at the idea of leaving the planet without his Padawan. “I don’t like it,” he admitted through clenched teeth. “We have to come back for her.”

“We will, Anakin,” Obi-Wan swore. “Now, hurry.”

They all piled into the gunships, preparing for a hasty evacuation of the planet. They had to have faith that Master Plo Koon and the others could break through the blockade long enough for them to escape.

When they were all in vacuum of space, ships rattling under fire, Anakin saw from his position in the pilot seat what had to be the oddest starship he’d ever seen. Anakin knew a lot about ships, it was his passion second only to being a Jedi, and he’d never seen one designed like this. It almost looked like two ships had been glued together. The front was a raised round disc, which connected at the back to a long barrel which progressed at a downwards angle away from the disc. The barrel connected to a cylinder which ran parallel to the disc and set slightly back due to the angle of the barrel. The cylinder had two engines attached to it that were raised high above it at equal height to the disc. The whole thing was a gleaming silver-white. It had writing on the hull of the disc, probably identifying marks, but they were in no language Anakin had ever seen.

The strange ship appeared to be on the Republic’s side at least, as it was busy disabling the Separatist frigates. Its shields appeared to be exceptionally resistant to laser-fire and it fired solid projectiles at the engines of the Separatist ships, removing their ability to fight or flee. It wasn’t built for war. Anakin could tell that much at a glance. If anything, he’d hazard it was an exploratory vessel, judging simply over the pros and cons of its external design. But what a strange, scientific starship was doing in the middle of their warzone was anyone’s guess. Anakin decided he would just be glad they were on his side.

To Obi-Wan, who was looking green around the gills as always when Anakin flew, Anakin said, “Master, do you see that ship?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Yes. It appears to be single-handedly defeating the Separatist blockade.”

Anakin watched the ship dart around, moving swiftly and deftly despite its odd shape. It was also _tiny_ compared to the Republic’s Star Destroyers or the Separatist’s frigates. It wasn’t built for more than five or six hundred beings, Anakin deduced.

“Do you know who they are?” he asked his mentor and friend.

Obi-Wan shook his head in the negative then appeared to immediately regret the motion’s effect on his already upset eardrums. “No, but if you figure it out, let me know,” he groaned.

“Oh, come on, Obi-Wan,” Anakin teased. “My flying’s not that bad.”

Obi-Wan gave him a look that said he would disagree later, when he wasn’t in danger of throwing up his stomach.

Anakin shrugged and continued his evasive manoeuvring to get around the Vulture droids. He had a close call with a couple on his tail he couldn’t quite shake, but then that strange ship swooped down from above and blasted the droids to scrap. Anakin let out an appreciative whoop.

“Can we contact that ship?” he asked Rex over his shoulder.

The clone commander attempted to do just that. “Can’t get through, sir,” he reported. “Don’t know if it’s the Seppies blocking it or if the ship’s just not on any of our frequencies.”

“Not a worry, Commander,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m sure we’ll have-” The ship lurched as Anakin did a barrel-roll to avoid being blown to smithereens. Obi-Wan swallowed his lunch back down. “-have plenty of time to talk, after we survive this,” he finished weakly.

The clones were all specially bred to not get space-sick, so they didn’t mind Anakin’s Force-influenced insane flying. But Obi-Wan had always preferred the comfort of solid ground, and Anakin’s… _unique_ style of piloting hadn’t helped any over the last decade.

They eventually blasted through the blockade with the help of the strange ship, and Jedi Master Plo Koon and Warthog in their Delta-7B _Aethersprite_ -class light interceptor. Anakin landed his gunship in the Star Destroyer without crashing, so Obi-Wan could thank him later. As soon as the ship had come to a stop, Anakin was unbuckled and off that puppy. He’d almost made it to the bridge of the Star Destroyer by the time Obi-Wan caught up. His master was red in the face and still a little green around the gills, which made for an interesting combination.

“Getting old, old man?” Anakin quipped.

Obi-Wan didn’t roll his eyes because that wasn’t the Jedi way but it was a near thing. “Let’s just get to the bridge, and see if we can contact that ship,” he suggested.

Anakin had no objections to that and they picked up their pace in tandem as they raced the rest of the way to the bridge. They were greeted by Cody, who explained that they were trying to raise the strange ship but had thus far had no luck.

Anakin glanced out the viewport at the strange ship as it whizzed by, neatly taking care of a squadron of Vulture droids that had been heading for the Star Destroyer. It looked like a new ship but old tech. Anakin wondered if maybe… “Have you tried radioing them?” he asked Cody.

The clone gave him a look like he’d left his brain behind on Felucia. “Yessir, I was just saying to General Kenobi that we’ve been hailing them on all frequencies since they entered the battle.”

But Anakin was shaking his head. Arms crossed, he frowned and said, “No, I meant _radio_ -radioed them.”

“Like, with analogue, sir?” Cody confirmed.

Anakin nodded.

“It’s worth a shot,” Obi-Wan agreed. Cody snapped a salute and got to it, ordering his men in communications to crack out the emergency broadcast system.

Anakin’s hunch turned out to be spot on the money, because they got a response. But it wasn’t at all what he was expecting.

“Commander Cody,” Ahsoka’s youthful voice crackled through the bridge’s speakers, “am I glad to hear you.”

Anakin nearly jumped clean out of his skin in a subconscious attempt to reach his Padawan. “Snips?” His voice sounded choked with relief. He had to hide his resulting embarrassment over the emotional display from Obi-Wan, who was giving him a look. “Is that you?”

“Skyguy?” came the reply.

Hope blossomed inside Anakin’s chest. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s me, Snips. Where are you?”

“Uh,” the Togrutan hedged. “It’s a long story, but I’m on a ship above Felucia.”

“I know,” Anakin said. “I can see the ship.”

“What?” Ahsoka sounded worried. “You’re up here? But they haven’t finished disabling the blockade.”

Anakin and Obi-Wan exchanged their own looks of concern.

“Who hasn’t?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Master Obi-Wan?” Ahsoka said. Then she forced herself to move past her surprise, just like Anakin had been teaching her. “I mean the people who abducted me. They’re not bad, I don’t think,” she explained. “None of them speak Basic but one of them is a touch-telepath so we’ve been communicating through thought.” She hesitated, then added, “His mind is like a Jedi’s.”

Anakin was more confused now than ever. “A Jedi took you?” He didn’t ask how; they could leave that for after they had her back.

“No,” Ahsoka said. “At least, I don’t think so. They acted like they’d never seen a lightsabre before or seen someone use the Force. From what I can gather from the touch-telepath, they’re not from around here.” She paused, and Anakin got the sense she was listening to someone. She came back with, “He says they’re working on a machine to translate between us, but that it’s taking some time. Apparently having me here is helping them work out the kinks.”

Anakin’s fists clenched tight. “They’re holding you?” he asked tensely.

“I-” Another listening-pause. “He says I’m free to go, and they apologise for any inconvenience. Apparently, they thought they were saving my life.” She didn’t have to add that if they were the ones who had magically teleported her out of there, they had saved her life.

Anakin hated owing people anything, especially strangers. And he owed these strangers the life of his Padawan. He’d probably never be able to repay that debt.

“You’re not in any danger?” Obi-Wan pressed.

“I don’t think so,” Ahsoka replied. “Masters, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, but the Force is telling me I can trust these beings.”

Anakin withheld a sigh. If Snips decided she wanted to trust someone, there was little he could say to change her mind. It would be better if he supported her decision, the way he’d always wanted someone to support his. (He knew that wasn’t exactly fair to Obi-Wan; the man had tried his best for Anakin and continued to try his best every day. It was just that, sometimes, too often, Anakin felt like he had no-one in his corner. He wouldn’t do that to his Padawan.)

“I trust you, Snips,” Anakin said. “If you say we can trust these beings, then we’ll trust them. Besides,” he joked, “they’re doing a wizard job melting down these clankers. I’d love to get a look at their ship.”

Ahsoka groaned, the sound not without affection. “Of course you would, master,” she said. “Look, I have to go help with the whole translator thing, but I’ll contact you soon. Ahsoka, out.”

The radio went silent, and Anakin’s shoulder slumped. Obi-Wan clasped a supportive hand over one of them. “Don’t worry, Anakin,” he said. “Ahsoka can take care of herself.”

“I know, master,” Anakin sighed. “I’m just not comfortable with this.”

Obi-Wan quirked a single ginger brow at his former Padawan. “You’re not having one of your ‘bad feelings’, are you?”

“No,” Anakin realised. That helped his frown relax. He reached out with his senses for the Force and found it attempting to reassure him too.

The battle for Felucia was far from over, but the Separatist blockade soon was. Between the three Republic Star Destroyers and the strange ship that had abducted Ahsoka, the droids were forced to retreat. Well, those of them that still had functioning engines had to retreat. The rest of them attempted to self-destruct but after the first frigate destroyed itself, the strangers’ ship summarily EMP-blasted the remaining two and caught them in a tractor beam. Keeping two large frigates aloft above a planet was evidently straining the sleek, little ship, so Anakin ordered the Star Destroyers in to help.

The Confederation would return soon enough with reinforcements. Felucia was too tactical of a location to give up after just one battle. But the Republic had won the day, and bought themselves an important strategic piece in the war, as well as much needed time. Anakin spared a moment to wonder what would have happened if the strange ship hadn’t appeared and decided to help them. In all likelihood, they would have had to surrender the planet and retreat or risk pointlessly losing three clone battalions and four Jedi.

Looks like Anakin owed these strangers more than just his Padawan’s life. The Republic was likely in their debt as well.

Master Plo disembarked on their Star Destroyer, wanting to debrief with his fellow Jedi in person. The Kel Dor greeted Rex and Cody each with a Mandolorian arm-grasp. He had great respect for the clones as individuals, and he was the Jedi who had found Ahsoka. Anakin had never dealt much with Plo Koon before the war, but he found himself regretting that. He rather liked the masked man.

“Master Plo,” Obi-Wan greeted with a smile. Anakin stood a little to the side, as ever unsure of his place when Jedi Masters were speaking. “Thank you for coming.”

“Not at all,” the Kel Dor rattled through his mask, his deep voice warm. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. It’s a good thing we had some help from our new friends out there.” He gestured a clawed hand at the viewport, where the silver-white ship could be seen hovering. “Do you know who they are?”

Obi-Wan shook his head once. “No, but we have spoken with Padawan Ahsoka Tano, who is presently aboard their ship.”

Plo looked genuinely concerned for Ahsoka’s safety, and Anakin’s respect for the Kel Dor jumped up a few notches.

“She says they’re good people,” Anakin added. “I was down on Felucia with my Padawan when we were jumped by B2s. They nearly got Ahsoka but she was teleported out of there by our new friends. I’m not sure how they did it, but they saved my Padawan’s life, so I’m not arguing,” Anakin concluded.

Plo seemed amused by the idea that Anakin wasn’t arguing for once. Anakin fought hard to suppress an angry-embarrassed flush at the emotion he sensed from the Kel Dor.

“Then I am more grateful for these strangers than I realised,” Plo said. “Can we speak with them directly? It would be good to find out what their intentions are.”

Obi-Wan nodded at Anakin, who opened the radio channel again. It was hardly secure communication, which was why no-one used subspace radio if they could avoid it, but they had little choice. “Snips?” Anakin asked through the electromagnetic waves. “You there?”

There was a long silence and then, “Yeah, Skyguy?”

Again, Anakin felt great relief at hearing his Padawan alive and well. “Master Plo Koon is here. He, Obi-Wan and I were hoping we could get an audience with your new friends?”

“Okay, Master,” Ahsoka replied. “Just a sec.” She obviously was doing that silent communication thing again with that touch-telepath. Anakin had to have faith in his Padawan that she could protect herself from any telepathic assaults. Jedi were trained telepaths, not natural ones, which could put them at a disadvantage, especially at Ahsoka’s age. But Ahsoka came back on the radio and still sounded fine, so Anakin let the worry go into the Force. “Skyguy?”

“Yeah, Snips?”

“They say they should be finished with the translator in about twenty minutes.” She paused again. “Okay, okay, geez,” she grumbled at someone on her end. “In nineteen point four minutes,” she corrected. Anakin pictured her rolling her large eyes. “They say they would be happy to either send a party to our ship, or you could come here with a small party.”

Anakin looked back at Obi-Wan and Plo Koon to get their input. The two Masters exchanged a look. “We should go to their ship,” Plo Koon suggested. “Then we can see what we are dealing with first-hand.”

“It would be risky,” Obi-Wan advised. “But with three Jedi, it shouldn’t be too much so.”

With that decided, Anakin turned back to Ahsoka. “We’ll come to you,” he said. “Do they have a docking port or a landing bay?”

Ahsoka took a second to filter the touch-telepath’s reply. “Both, apparently. Any of our small ships should fit in the hangar. They’re less confident about the compatibility of our docking systems.”

“We’ll take a gunship,” Anakin suggested. It sounded more violent than intended, but all their ships on hand were built for war. There wasn’t a single unarmed ship they could take.

“Okay,” Ahsoka confirmed. “They’ll be ready for you. Oh, and apparently the captain here is looking forward to meeting you.”

“You spoke to their captain?”

“Kinda?” Ahsoka sounded amused. “We’re using the telepath as a go-between. He’s not to happy about being used as a messenger service. It’s kind of hilarious.”

Anakin was growing curiouser and curiouser about meeting these newcomers. Snips certainly seemed to approve of them, and Anakin trusted his Padawan’s judgement.

“Well then,” Anakin said, “I’m excited to meet their captain too.”

“You’re just excited to have a sticky-beak around their ship,” Ahsoka accused jokingly.

Anakin made a mock sound of offence. “Me? Never. You wound me, my Padawan.” He sobered a little. “I’ll see you soon, Snips. You hang tight, okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, Master,” Ahsoka said. “You’re the trouble-magnet around here. Ahsoka, out.”

“Skywalker, out.”

They disconnected and Anakin steadfastly ignored the looks he was getting from the other two Jedi. “Let’s go,” he said, and strode away with purpose.

The three Jedi, along with a half dozen (lightly armed) clone troopers, clambered aboard the least damaged gunship. Anakin was always loathe to let anyone else fly a ship he was on, so he was grateful that Plo Koon took the co-pilot’s seat without asking. Anakin launched their ship and steered them towards the silver-white starship that have saved them all not long ago.

Anakin circled the ship, looking for the hangar bay where he could land the gunship.

“It’s a beautiful ship,” Plo commented, almost wistfully.

Obi-Wan, standing behind the cockpit, looking much better now that Anakin wasn’t flying them in all directions, commented, “It’s a unique design. Reminds me of some of the ancient Jedi scientific vessels.”

“This ship’s a lot bigger than those,” Anakin mused. “They were designed for crew complements of a hundred or less. This ship is easily designed for five times that amount.”

At the base and rear of the ship, they found open hangar doors. Anakin steered their ship inside, setting her down gently on the landing pad that was flashing inviting lights at them. They waited a minute as the hangar bay doors slid shut with a vacuum seal, and the hangar bay re-pressurised with air. Air which was hopefully breathable and non-toxic because Ahsoka had been breathing it for a couple of hours by this point.

The Jedi and clones watched as doors leading into the main body of the strangers’ ship opened. The entire ship had a bright white interior, which lines and panels of colour and various markings making the whole thing feel warm and inviting rather than cold and sterile. The beings who walked through those doors were mostly humanoid in appearance. They were dressed in what had to be uniforms, but they were brightly coloured garments the likes of which Anakin rarely saw because he spent most of his time around Jedi and soldiers. Padmé sometimes wore equally colourful, if not more colourful, clothes but hers weren’t exactly uniforms. This lent credence to Anakin’s ‘space explorers’ theory. The uniforms seemed to have three categories: red, yellow and blue. They weren’t divided along gender or species lines, as far as Anakin could tell, so they were probably indicative of different divisions of work.

The male humanoid at the head of the group was a man of somewhat short stature. He was solidly built and wore the golden yellow type of long-sleeved shirt, along with black slacks and boots. The metallic bands sown into the wrists of his uniform had two solid lines on either sided of a dotted line, giving him the most bands total of anyone in the group. He was probably the captain. He had blond hair, brown eyes, and a kind face. He had a small rectangular device hooked onto on side of his pants, but it didn’t look like a weapon. Some of the red-clad beings were carrying pistols of some description, likely some kind of energy weapon.

The captain was closely flanked by two male humanoids in blue. The taller of the pair had pointed ears, harshly slanted eyebrows, and a black bowl of straight hair. His skin was flushed green rather than pink and he carried himself with minimalistic movements and straight posture. Anakin would bet the pod-racer he wasn’t supposed to own that the green-tinged being was the touch-telepath Ahsoka had spoken of.

The other blue-shirt was an older male, humanoid and pink-tinged. His face was lined, evidence of many stressful years in his slightly bent posture and frown. He carried a black cylindrical device, which Anakin pegged as being a scanner of some kind. He had dark brown hair and blue eyes, and seemed determined to stick to the captain like stink on a bantha.

Aside from the armed personnel, there were another four humanoids. Two men in yellow-shirts, one younger than Anakin with curly brown hair and wide eyes, and one with the confident step of a swordsman and the swagger of a pilot. One more male, this one a bit on the grey and balding side, despite not being that old, dressed this time in a red-shirt. He seemed to be the only one who hadn’t cleaned up for the occasion as he was still covered in the tell-tale grease and burn marks of a mechanic. The last was a female with dark-skin in a short red dress. She was hauling what had to be some heavy equipment along on a wheeled cart. It looked like it had enough computing power to run half of Coruscant but the thing was hooked up to a pair of microphones. It looked like a rush-job, so it was probably the heavily-modified translator Ahsoka had mentioned.

And, speaking of his Padawan, she was there too. She was helping the woman pull the heavy cart with the Force, evidently unable to pull by hand because of the mass of bandages around her midriff which indicated at least one of the blaster-fires had gotten through before she’d been mysteriously teleported away.

Anakin was up and out of his chair, and down the ship’s ramp, and running to his Padawan’s side before he even fully processed what he was doing. “Snips!” he cried joyously, bypassing all the strangers and hitting his knees on the floor as he skidded to a halt. He pulled Ahsoka into a hug, careful of her wound, and just let himself feel her presence in the Force for a long moment. She barely hesitated before returning the embrace, likely more out of surprise over her master’s sudden public display of affection than a rejection of that affection. There was, after all, their scheming old troll of a grandmaster had sought fit to place them together.

“Master.” Ahsoka sounded like she was close to tearing up. “Not in front of Master Plo. Please, I’ll never live it down.”

Anakin chuckled into her montrals. “Sorry, Snips,” he sniffled, and pulled himself together. He’d been more worried about his Padawan than he had led himself to believe. He cleared his throat sheepishly when he saw a dozen pairs of strange eyes staring at him and ‘Soka.

“Um, hello,” he said. He raised a hand in what he hoped translated as a universally friendly greeting. “My name is Anakin Skywalker. I’m a Jedi. You saved the life of my Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, whom you’ve met. I can’t express how grateful I am.” He bowed deeply, letting his gratitude show. When he straightened, he saw the captain in yellow smiling warmly at him.

“It’s my pleasure to meet you, General Skywalker,” the captain said. His voice was soft and welcoming, belying the undercurrent of confidence, strength and command Anakin could make out. The man stepped forward and held out a hand for Anakin to shake.

“Captain James T. Kirk, USS _Enterprise_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jim is speaking through the UT at the end there with Anakin. Anakin's reaction to the UT and other Enterprise tech is coming soon...
> 
> To be honest with you, I haven't seen The Clone Wars show since it first aired. I'm hoping to get a copy of the series soon so I can watch it again, but for now I'm refreshing my poor memory with Wookiepedia information haha, so if any details of the battle of Felucia etc are wrong, I'll come back to fix them later~


End file.
